


there are ghosts in the walls

by fvckradio



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Attempted Murder, Character Death, Death, Ghost Sex, Ghost Taeil, Horror, Knives, M/M, Murder, Past Character Death, Sad Ending, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:55:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26760262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fvckradio/pseuds/fvckradio
Summary: Sometimes, Yuta feels eyes on him when he’s alone in his apartment.
Relationships: Moon Taeil/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 14
Kudos: 63
Collections: NCT Spookfest 2020





	there are ghosts in the walls

**Author's Note:**

> **CONTENT WARNING**  
>  This is a horror short story. Please note the Major Character Death warning. If you are uncomfortable with themes of death and horror, please don't read. One character is a ghost which is the past character death, and another character does die within the text.  
> Other possible triggering content, there are a number of scenes where Yuta implies that he is considering death. There is also a scene where knives are thrown at a character. If either of those makes you uncomfortable, that's fine, just do not read.  
> I strongly encourage you to proceed with caution and heed the tags. If you finish this and feel like there are additional tags that are necessary, please let me know.  
>   
> On a different note thank you to everyone who encouraged this especially [Sparrow](https://twitter.com/aurasparrowmist) who really pushed me along when I proposed the idea of ghostfucking. This is not what she expected however it is where we ended up.  
> Some songs that provided the inspiration for this are [Sex with a Ghost by Teddy Hyde](https://youtu.be/AGKcT5vlRkE) and [Arms Tonite by Mother Mother](https://youtu.be/F0xdQ8ES9fc). The title comes from [Such Small Hands by La Dispute](https://youtu.be/q93VsIb4Pzg)  
> I hope if you do read this you enjoy it!

Sometimes, Yuta feels eyes on him when he’s alone in his apartment. 

The heavy feeling of someone watching him follows him around his home throughout the day. He does his best to ignore it, but he catches himself peeking around corners and glancing over his shoulder. There is never anyone there. 

He convinces himself it's just paranoia, that he watched too many horror movies as a kid. And that’s true, but when the sun sets a chill sets over the apartment. Rather than running from eyes he can’t find, he’s walking right into cold spots that hold him in place. Goosebumps riddle his skin as he makes dinner for himself. It lingers around him while he eats, dances around the table, lifting the tablecloth and his hair and his anxiety. 

He knows it’s not just paranoia. 

It wasn’t always like this. 

When he first moved in, his landlord warned him of a draft, said the previous tenants complained about it and no matter what they did it just wouldn’t go away. He ran hot, he said, he would be okay. For the first few months, it was okay. There was a little chill sometimes but nothing worth complaining about, and a one-bedroom apartment that was nice and affordable in this part of the city was hard to come by. Slowly, he turned it into a home, saving up for a new couch or letting the aroma of a freshly cooked meal linger in the kitchen. He bought a candle that he keeps on his coffee table that reminds him of some old white lady’s house but it makes the apartment feel more lived in. The knife set his father had gifted him found a place on his counter and Yuta found a place in his apartment. 

It took two months before the cold took hold. It started with breezes across his neck as he stood in the hall and lingering cold spots, even when the winter began to slip over them. He told his landlord the draft was back and the handyman caulked the windows. It didn’t change anything but he thanked the landlord anyways. He even went as far as to get those things that go under the door to keep the cold out. No matter how high he turned his heating, he felt like he was being followed by winter’s kiss. 

Only after he had invested in more blankets than he ever imagined and had a heating bill higher than he was used to, did the weird things start to happen. 

Little things came first. A misplaced book, or coffee cup here, an out of place sweater there. He chalked them all up to his own forgetfulness. He simply shrugs and moves things back into place and moves on. He could easily explain away why his favorite blanket was in a different room, or how his keys magically ended up on the hook. Even when his work papers seemingly arranged themselves on his desk, he assumed he’d forgotten in his sleepy haze. The things he couldn’t as easily explain came later. When he stepped out of the shower after a long day at work, there was a tiny smiley face written into the condensation. He wiped it off to wash his face. The next day it was back, and then again the day after that until weeks had passed and Yuta didn’t think anything of it. He stopped wiping it off when he got out of the shower, instead leaving it to sit in the corner while he got ready. 

Things, naturally, only got weirder. He didn’t know how to explain it so he just… didn’t. But some days he would go into his kitchen to find his coffee already brewing. Or his laundry already tumbling. The first time he convinced himself he’s simply forgotten, turned something on, and walked away. But the second, third, even fourth time something happened—he wasn’t a superstitious person. 

“I think my apartment is haunted,” he let slip over the phone one night. He’s a couple of drinks in and his shower had been running when he’d come home from work. It was weird, it was weird and he didn’t know why it didn’t make him sick. 

He details the weird shit going on around his apartment. Mentions the mirror notes and the coffee. He ignores the fluttering in his stomach. His friend doesn’t believe him, laughs before he tells him to get some sleep. He knows they don’t mean ill but he thinks of the shaking of his fingertips as he steps into a cold spot. He ignores the pit in his stomach, blames it on paranoia in a brand new city. He pretends like it hasn’t been months. 

_Ghosts aren’t real_ , he tells himself. He repeats it like a prayer all night long as he’s tucking himself into bed. His pajamas had been laid out when he got home. _Ghosts aren’t real, ghosts aren’t real_ he chants as he closes his eyes. A chill breeze brushes against his ankle under the covers. _Ghosts aren’t real_. 

He sees the face for the first time that Tuesday. 

He feels like someone is watching him, eyes trailing up his back as he washes his face hunched over his bathroom sink. It burns into his spine and it feels like all of the blood rushes to his head just at the thought of it. He stands up faster than he usually does and staring back at him in the mirror is a face. His head whips around and there is no one there. Yuta turns back to the mirror and there he is, standing in the doorway. His hands shake. He peaks over his shoulder, slowly this time. No one. 

When he looks back into the mirror the face is gone. As he takes a deep breath, his chest rattles. He knew the apartment was haunted, but seeing it, that was a different story. The quivering of his hands didn’t do much to distract him from the fear growing in his spine. He leans down again, splashes water on his face. It doesn’t do much to calm his nerves, and when he hesitates before he stands up again. As he looks up again, he isn’t sure what he expected. The pit in his stomach returns but the face doesn’t. He pretends he doesn’t feel disappointed. 

The face doesn’t show up in his mirror again but it lingers in Yuta’s mind. Every time he closes his eyes he sees the face hovering over his shoulder in the bathroom. Their hollow eyes and soft hair, deep and sinking into his very being. The expression of shock the ghost had seared itself into Yuta’s psyche, and he can’t help but wonder what it means that the spirit hadn’t wanted to be seen. It takes space. The cold seems to lift from his apartment, at least for a couple of days. The weird things don’t stop happening, but they are less direct. His blankets are folded but never left for him. The notes disappear from his mirror. He feels a sinking in his chest. 

It goes on for a week, takes hold of his being and he can barely sleep. He stares up at his ceiling and wonders what it would be like for the ghost to hover over him. He wonders if he would be solid and real or if he would hang over him like a cloud. When he’s asked how the haunting is going, he holds back from sharing the longing in his chest. He doesn’t want to let them know how much he _wants_. 

The chill returns slowly, as a breeze in the hallway or a cold spot in the kitchen. Yuta finds himself reaching out for it. He stays up late researching ways to speak to ghosts. Ouija boards are too expensive and a medium seems too invasive. The idea of letting someone into his home feels wrong; as strange as it is, he feels better when he’s alone with the ghost. It hides out in the walls as he stumbles through his daily routines. It feels wrong, not being cold anymore. He never thought he would miss the cold. He wishes he could just _talk_ to it. 

“You know,” he says to no one. “I wish I could just talk to you. Do I need one of those spirit boards? I heard they were dangerous.” 

The silence speaks back. 

It starts as a low whisper but grows into a shrill scream. It surrounds him and the sound hurts his ears. He strains to hear it over the noise. His ears rang, and he winces. Just as suddenly as it began it ended. The ringing continues in his ears as the silence fills his apartment. Sitting up in bed, he looks around. He is alone. 

“Was that you?” he hears himself whisper. There is no response this time, just empty air. “Tell me your name.” 

The air remains flat. His ears still ring but the noise doesn’t come back. He falls asleep searching for the voice in his mind and taking apart the image of his spirit behind his eyes. The seed of desire pushes itself deep into his stomach and he reaches within himself for that feeling that has been lingering since he first realized he wasn’t as alone as he imagined. When he pulls it out, it doesn’t surprise him that it isn't fear, just pure unchallenged excitement. 

When he gets out of his shower the next morning, the writing is back on the mirror. There is no smiley face, but instead written in script across the center of it is a name. _Taeil_. He touches his lips as he repeats it under his breath. A small breeze blows against the back of his neck as says the name into the bathroom. There is no one behind him in the mirror, but Yuta smiles. _Taeil._ He can work with that one. 

He falls back into his routine and opens his arms to the mystery he is cohabitating with. _Taeil_ doesn’t show their face in the mirror but instead in the tiny things he had been doing before. It makes Yuta giddy when he finds his coffee already made, or his clothes laid out for him. They sink into the apartment together, and Yuta doesn’t complain about the cold anymore. It only comes out at night, under the dark coat of the evening and saying until the careful light of the morning. Yuta likes it, it makes him feel special to think that someone is drifting around his home every night. 

The temperature drops with the sun. As night sets over the city, the ghost settles into the apartment. Yuta fumbles and shivers through his apartment every evening. 

Frankly, he wonders if he’s been possessed. 

He hasn’t been. He is alone in his head, despite the fact that he is not alone in his home. There is no face behind him in the mirror, but there are sometimes messages left for him. Casually _it will be cold today_ or _you look beautiful in the moonlight_. Shivers travel down his spine as he reads them and he wonders if he is being watched from the walls, wonders if the blush on his skin is visible from wherever the spirit is hiding. 

The yearning in his stomach grows and grows and Yuta searches for a way to be bold. He stays up late imagining the way it would feel for Taeil to touch him, hold him. He lays himself bare and waits for Taeil to take. Emotionally, the spirit has captured him. He breaks down his walls for him every evening. Physically, he wants more. He hopes it is watching as Yuta lets himself crumble under his own hands. Baits the ghost to take control. 

His teasing comes to head one night when he whispers into the cold, cold air. 

“Taeil.” 

The chill pulls back, sharp and quick like a hand retreating after a burn. Yuta holds his breath as he waits for a response. It doesn’t surround him anymore but the cloud of coldness hovers around the outskirts of his room. He waits, patient, and calm as it slowly slinks back towards him. 

He breathes out again, “please.” 

And as if he has just cut the chain holding him back, the frosty air falls over him again. Blankets him against his bedsheets and wraps him up in frigid air. The first touch feels like heaven, and if Yuta believed in God he’d be praying for forgiveness. But he does not believe in God and he is a sinner so instead, he prays to the ghost in his walls, to take hold of him and forgive him for holding out for so long. 

The air is heavy around him as he throws his head back against the pillows. His back arches off the bed and he sinks his fingers into the silky sheets below him. A chill travels up his body like fingertips, slow and calculated, moving up, up, up his torso until it wraps around his neck with a vice grip. This is what he had been waiting for. He gasps, airly, and breathy. The cold sinks over him but his skin still feels hot. He lets his eyes roll back and the bliss takes over. He’s lightheaded, but a chilly hand is running up and down his sternum and he doesn’t want it to stop. 

The headrush comes when the pressure lifts off his neck. As he drags air back into his lungs, the blood rushes to his brain. He’s dizzy, with the pleasure, with the blood. His limbs feel like lead sinking into the mattress. Beyond the bubbling of blood in his own ears is a buzzing, it sounds like mumbling but he can’t make out the words. The whispers grow closer until they’re in his ears, unintelligible and painful. Even when they stop his ears ring. 

He feels disoriented and the only thing drawing him back to his body is the brush of the chill crawling down his chest. It lingers on his stomach, light feathering over his abdomen as it sinks lower, lower, lower. A breath catches in his throat and if the chill had a face it would be shooting up to look at him. He holds his breath as the cold washes over him from head to toe, almost like it’s lying on top of him. It makes him feel small, he has to stop himself from shivering under the gaze of it.

“Please,” he hears himself whisper. He barely recognizes his own voice, so high and uneven. “Please, please, please.” 

The buzzing is back in his ears. He strains until he can make out the sounds, pushes out the headache it gives him. _Okay. If you insist._

It takes over. Cool against his fiery skin. He doesn’t bother trying to stop himself from writhing underneath it. His ears are ringing and he can barely make out his own babbling over the crescendo of the whispers growing around him. He turns his own fingers into claws as he grips the bedsheets like he’s afraid it will pull him away if he lets go. The cold falls completely over him, whispers and electric touches brush against all of him. Distracted by his own bliss he is almost surprised as it brushes against his neck again. He lifts his throat, bares his neck to the unknown. It seems to hesitate, so he nods and it wastes no time sinking back onto him. He lets out a gasp as it tightens around his throat. He smiles as it constricts. The pressure builds and builds and builds and–

He sees white as it explodes around him. 

With a shiver, the cold lifts. It disappears into the air with a lingering touch. Yuta falls back against his pillows, sated and completely alone. 

He isn’t quite sure how he got from point a to point b. Yuta isn't sure he can say when he went from fearing the ghost in his walls to loving him. Taeil comes with the moon and takes Yuta apart piece by piece. He puts him back together then retreats with the rising sun. He doesn’t quite touch him, more exists around him, wraps him up in his cold, cold cloud, and holds him close. It’s confusing. 

Taeil starts showing his face more. He’s behind Yuta while he brushes his teeth or washes his face. He appears in the mirror in the hallway his mother had insisted on. Yuta finds himself roaming the aisles of Home Goods, scourging for mirrors to leave in his apartment. He doesn’t admit it but he leaves the door open as he showers, leaving the curtain open for the chance of a peak of Taeil in the doorway. He lingers sometimes, and Yuta preens under the heavy gaze of him through the mirror. 

The one place he doesn’t add mirrors is the bedroom. 

Everyone had always told him he was too superstitious, and for most of his life he believed it. But his roommate was a ghost and Yuta was not willing to take chances. 

He considered it, however. Dreamed of it even. It kept him up at night, wondering what Taeil would look like in his bed, under the moonlight. He imagined what it would be like to watch him, be able to see his face while he came apart. He never quite took the plunge. 

The transition from skirting around cold spots to inviting a ghost into his bed every night was quick. Quicker than he expected, really. He found himself bound to him, captivated by the spirit in his bedroom. He couldn’t leave. He didn’t want to. Every night he packed up at work and waved off his coworkers. They teased him, asked if he was hiding someone at home. He laughed it off with a wink. Taeil was his best kept and only secret. Yuta was completely and utterly taken by him. He couldn’t even find it in himself to care that he only came around as the sun went down. He thought it was poetic even, that they never saw each other during the daytime. 

Fridays had always been his favorite days, freed into the opportunity of the weekend. Where he used to go for dinner or a drink with his friends, he was now rushing home. Running off to his cold, cold apartment, to giddy to explain the appeal of an empty home. 

The ringing starts when he gets out of his car. Even from a distance the static sound of Taeil’s voice shakes his ear drums. It hurts but he can’t stop himself from smiling while he strains to make out the whispers. They lead him up the stairs and down the hall, drag him into his apartment and when he drops his keys on the counter they stop. 

“Hi,” he whispers into the silence. The air is heavy around him, cold and solid. 

The silence whispers back, _you’re late_. 

His breath catches and the cold takes his hands and leads him to the bedroom. As they pass the mirror, he stares at the glimpse of Taeil in front of him. He holds it close, locks it into the back of his mind for safe keeping. They walk past the only floor length mirror in the apartment and it flashes in Yuta’s mind that this is the only time he’s seen Taeil this close to him. Takes a snapshot in his mind, for safekeeping. 

When the door clicks shut behind him, Yuta’s distracted. It’s dark and cold and he’s straining both to see and to hear. He can’t distinguish between the statics in his brain, can’t separate the lust from the quiet whispers of his phantom. He yelps when his back hits the mattress. 

The pressure behind his eyes builds. Static and sound lay heavy on his head and he feels like his mind is on fire. Like a lake cut off by a dam, the water level rises. He feels it pushing against his skull and his chest. His heartbeat is erratic; he wonders if Taeil can feel it. He wonders if Taeil’s would be racing the same. 

“I missed you,” he chokes out. The pressure sinks into his lungs as Taeil blankets him in the cold. It builds and builds and builds, as Taeil brushes against his skin, encourages him to take off his shirt, his socks. He can barely keep track of everything around him. Noise builds in his ears and tension builds in his chest as his work pants hit the floor. 

And just as suddenly as it started, it stops. 

His ears pop and Yuta feels the dam break. Everything flows out of his chest like a river and spills onto the floor in front of him. Taeil’s hands travel down his chest, past the gaping hole left in the center of it. They land on his stomach and he feels his breathing stop. His hands lift off the mattress, grasping at empty air. Yuta would do almost anything to reach out and touch. It’s almost torture that Taeil can have his way with him and Yuta cannot take hold the same way. Closing his eyes, he imagines his lover’s face hovering above him. The muddled up mixture of the flashes of him in mirrors isn’t enough to capture him. To Yuta, Taeil is so beautiful that no made up image could ever do right by him. It flashes in front of his eyes, how he could see the other first hand. He is pulled away from it by cold air on his cock. 

Bliss takes over until he sees white, then black. 

When he wakes up, it's to an ice cold apartment and static air. 

It shouldn’t be comforting, but Taeil’s like a drug and Yuta simply cannot get enough. He’s addicted to his presence. Even though he can’t see him, he can feel him around every corner. In his bed as the early beams of sunlight come through the window, a sly smile takes over. This is everything he has ever needed. When he looks in the mirror, his skin is just as unmarked as it had been the night before, but everywhere he touches feels like fire. He presses down on his throat, just hard enough to feel the ghost of Taeil’s teeth digging into his skin, if he could really call it that. 

He smiles into his empty apartment, decides to have eggs for breakfast. 

Slowly, Yuta stops dragging blankets around the apartment. He stops pulling on extra layers and extra socks. He starts finding the cold to be more inviting than the warmth. He leaves his apartment without a jacket and when he shows up at the office shivering, he’s beaming. It makes him feel on top of the world. His frozen fingertips remind him of Taeil and the shiver that runs up his spine draws him away from himself and back into his bedroom. 

He keeps rushing home, returning into the arms of a lover every evening. He feels his breath catch every time Taeil ghosts past him in the kitchen, brushes against him in the hall. He feels his chest open up every time he catches his eye in the mirror. It leaves him giddy and wanting; waiting for more. He always wants more. 

The cloud slinks around the apartment like a cat, licks into corners and rubs against the furniture. Yuta relishes in the frigid breeze against his face when he opens the door. It gives him a headrush to think Taeil is waiting for him, surrounding him as soon as he crosses the threshold. He holds him close, and Yuta wishes he could hold him closer. 

He’s been thinking about that a lot. Recently, at least. How he can get Taeil closer. 

Every night Taeil brushes those thoughts away, with an ear splitting whisper and a biting touch. 

Yuta is in love. 

He hopes Taeil loves him back. 

The knife set goes missing on a Thursday. 

He works late, gets home just as the moon is coming out. He can’t hear Taeil as he pulls into his parking spot, but in his sleepy haze he barely notices. He stumbles through the building, closes his eyes as he leans against the elevator. When he unlocks his door, the cold reaches out and holds his face in both of its hands. It welcomes him home like a widow to her husband. The irony is lost on him as he kicks off his shoes. Tired and cold, he collapses into his bed. The mist caresses his hair until he is lulled into a dream. 

In the morning, he doesn’t have any knives. His hand hovers over where the kitchen block usually lives. There isn’t any good reason for it to be missing. He searches high and low but there is no one in his empty apartment to move it, and he certainly didn’t. He stares into the empty space as he gets ready for work. Leaves a note on the counter for Taeil, signs it with a heart. 

The missing knife block is forgotten as Yuta falls into the monotony of his day job. At lunch, his stomach grumbles and reminds him why he didn’t pack any food. He slips down to the convenience store down the street, sits at his desk as he eats. It’s puzzling, really. He wishes he could just _call_ Taeil, ask him what’s going on. He can’t. 

It distracts him for the rest of the day. Starts with what happened to the knives, strays into what Taeil’s voice sounds like, transitions into what Taeil would look like cooking in his kitchen, leads right back to the knives. It makes his head spin. By the time he’s getting into his car, his mind is a jumble of fears and concerns. The confusion falls over him like a hot fog. It makes his skin crawl as he drives home. 

The cold crowds him when he locks his door behind him. 

“Taeil,” he whines, reaching into thin air. “Taeil, I missed you.” 

They fall into bed and the knife block becomes forgotten. Under clouds of cold and comfort, the memory of his confusion lingers but no matter how far he digs, he can’t grab on to the source. 

When he wakes up, everything is normal again. He smiles at Taeil in the mirror, goes to work, is welcomed back by the cold, cold embrace. He falls into bed again and again and again. _This,_ he thinks to himself as he stares up at the ceiling, covered in cold air, _this is what they mean by heaven on earth._

Winter turns into spring morphs into summer and Yuta gets a promotion. He commemorates it with a bottle of champagne and the ice cold kiss of loneliness. He takes what he can of Taeil in his hands and he holds on tight. He pretends he doesn’t falter as it slips through his fingertips. In retrospect, the beginning of the end came long before this. Yuta, however, has never been good at looking ahead. 

The beginning of the end starts like this. 

He comes home a week after the start of his new job to a hot apartment. The air is sweaty and overbearing and Yuta has to double check the apartment number three times before he steps inside. He’s two hours later than he usually is and tired beyond belief and he has to pinch himself that he isn’t just making it all up. Where Taeil’s cold laid heavy on him like a tight hug, this feels like concrete on his chest. It makes his lungs feel wet and his skin sticky as he toes off his shoes and cautiously makes his way through the apartment. Everything is the same as when he left in the morning but gone is the lingering cool that had haunted his apartment. It’s unsettling. 

He peers around corners and under furniture but there isn’t even the hint of a cold spot. The fog that would follow him around is gone and in its wake is a blistering heat he had never had to deal with. When he’s searched the apartment two, three times, he sighs. On the fourth search he throws open all the windows. As he lays naked in his bed a breeze brushes against his skin. For once, it’s frightening. 

He wakes up in sweat and an apartment of dead air. He never realized how much Taeil moved around until there was nothing shifting the currents. Less than 24 hours since he vanished and Yuta is already thrown off his axis. He flounders through a shower and breakfast and he pulls a knife out of the block and– 

The knife block is sitting in between his coffee maker and paper towel holder, where it had always been. 

A hot breeze blows against the back of his neck, blows away his doubts. He cuts up his vegetables and packs his lunch and whispers promises, just in case Taeil is listening. As he backs out of his parking spot, his ears start to ring. 

It worries him in passing throughout his day. Every passing draft or frigid cold spot drags him back to his hollow kitchen. He floats through his day like he’s the ghost, haunting his own life. He can barely see through the fog hanging over his head but at the end of the day, he finds himself frozen in front of his apartment. Opening his door is like Schrodinger’s cat, to reduce it down to the absolute simplest terms. Either Taeil will be there or he won’t. His fingers shake against the door knob. The air that hits his face is cool. 

“Taeil,” he whispers like a prayer. 

_Hello_. The static sound of his voice hurts his ears, but Yuta is too blissed out to care. He falls into it, like he does every day; lets himself be taken and held by the one thing he can’t touch. It huddles him into bed and kisses him until he chokes. Yuta, like always, doesn’t mind. When he tries to ask Taeil where he went, he is met by silence and cold shoulders so, like most things, he lets it go. In the dead of night as he lays slayed out on his mattress Taeil murmurs like a dream, _it doesn’t matter where I go, it will always be you._ He greets him with a frosty embrace and _this_ feels like home. 

The notes start appearing on his mirror again. Taeil becomes more chatty, always pushing Yuta along; asking questions, making suggestions. He whispers in his ears and Yuta is in a trance. The headache it gives him becomes constant, blistering pain behind his eyes. Taeil never leaves. The chilly cloud follows him around his apartment, surrounding him through the entire night. He barely sleeps, instead spends his late nights wrapped up in everything Taeil gives him. It’s exhausting, spending long days at work and long nights with his beloved, but as he drags himself through his day, he is smiling. As he sips on his third cup of coffee of the day, he is giddy. Taeil loves him. Taeil wants him. Taeil will never leave him. It consumes him. 

_Do you want to play a game?_ Taeil proposes, in the deep black of the night. In the darkness, Yuta smiles, agrees. The phantom hangs over him like a body suspended from the ceiling. If he had a face he would be smiling. 

Yuta forgets about it, lets the memory of the game be washed away by work and Taeil and the ghost in his walls. It’s abandoned in the back of his mind, covered up and buried by the feeling of a specter touch against his skin. It leaves him until the day he comes home to his knives hanging in the air. 

_Hello,_ the noise sings. _I wanted to play a game_. He freezes, hands shaking facing the blades. His ears ring, whispers like daggers against his ear drums. _Do you trust me?_ the spirit asks, carefully. Yuta would lay his life in Taeil’s hands if he had the chance. 

“Yes,” he sighs into the silence. He closes his eyes, opens his heart. He lays himself bare in front of Taeil; my life is yours to take, he says. Yes, he says. 

The steak knife lands prettily five inches from his head. It sticks out of the wooden cabinet, suspended next to Yuta’s frozen body. His fists clench and shake. A sob is held back by his tongue, a careful reminder that he has to be controlled. If he strains his ears he can just pull out the wicked laugh _it’s just a game, Yuta._ A second knife flies at him and he doesn’t flinch. He lets it land on the other side of his head. Eyes fly open, stare vacant as a third dagger stabs itself into the cabinet. As quickly as it started, it stops, knives clatter down like rain during a storm that Yuta is in the eye of. 

Just like that, the air takes hold of him, takes over him. It welcomes him home. His hands shake with the pain in his head, with the adrenaline in his blood. He leans into it, lets the mist comfort him, control him. He has pleased the poltergeist. 

It takes him to the bedroom and Yuta wishes he could see its face. It hovers over him and his pounding heart like a predator waiting to pounce. He reaches out with both hands, lifts them up in prayer. Bares his throat for Taeil to take. And yet, he holds back. Waiting. 

“Please,” Yuta prays. “I’m yours to take.” 

The flood gates open. It clouds over him and surrounds him and for the first time it feels like he’s suffocating. This isn’t what he meant when he said he made him feel breathless. His heart rate quickens and he feels his hands claw at the hand around his neck. There's nothing to grab on to. The pressure deepens as he scrambles for this freedom. This is not what he meant when he said take him. For a flash, brief and effervescent he thinks he will finally see his face and he falls apart. Deep, deep within him, this excites him. His vision spots and the excitement is gone. It lifts, suddenly, and he’s gasping for breath, gasping for Taeil. 

_Don’t worry_ , the whispers scream inside his head. _Don’t worry_ , the voices tell him. It crashes over him like a wave and he’s choking again. This is what it means to love, a sick voice inside his brain tells itself. You must give him everything. He writhes on the bedsheets, in pain, in pleasure. He had always said he would give everything for Taeil. 

Above him, a face appears from the darkness. 

Right before it fades to black, he feels cold fingertips dance across his skin.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/realitysuh)


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